Thy Native Innocence
by Ravenclaw42
Summary: Thunderstorms bring out memories in Greed that might better be left buried, while Martel finds out the hard way that loving her new boss might not be something any living being is capable of.


**Author's Notes:** Spoilerific, yay. Het! Haven't done that in a while. I've decided to pair Greed with a different character for every fic I write about him. The great thing about Greed is that he is the ultimate omnisexual -- it's not even voluntary, he just wants everything/everyone he sees, all the time. Poor guy. (innocent whistle)

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Thy Native Innocence  
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_"Go in thy native innocence, rely  
On what thou hast of virtue, summon all,  
For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine."_  
--John Milton, _Paradise Lost,_ Book IX

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It should have been a beginning. There should have been joy. Life regained, continued; altered, yes, but tangible still. His memories had not gone, like some of the others. His body was strong, beautiful, similar to the original. There was little pain.

But for this life, this perversion of being, there was no joy. Even at birth.

Violet eyes, lids slitted over cat-slit pupils, shone with a pale inner light as Greed stood gazing out the rain-streaked window. The drumming on the tin roof of the abandoned farm building they'd holed up in drowned out most other sound, but Greed didn't fear for his safety. Even without his new flunkies keeping watch, he wouldn't fear.

He remembered a day like this, somewhere in the distant past -- he couldn't remember years, after all the time he'd missed, but he dated memories by landmarks, and this one was closest to the biggest milestone of all.

The night after his birth.

He had been born alone, in a ballroom with tall windows, curtains drawn and blood on the floor. His own. The ingredients, raw iron and plasma, transmuted into blood with nothing to contain it; he remembered, dimly, the eternity in the dark, his own heavy, wet breathing a thunderous pain to his raw ears, nerves on fire in one twisted arm, the other limbs dead, disconnected. He did not know what he had looked like then. Malformed. Something abhorrent to nature, he was sure; he was, after all, Dante's first and poorest wretch of a creation.

The uncertain first, the unwanted son, outcast among the outcasts, alien among the inhuman. No tragic backstory, his. Only a sad, greedy life ended by a woman involved in larger things, his death serving no purpose beyond the experimental.

Then into the hot, wet, blood-red darkness of the birthing circle there came light; twilight, he knew now, but then he'd been aware of only pain, optic nerves overwhelmed. Sound came then, too, over his breathing, as of a steady hammering all around. Rain. Rain on the high roof, floors above. He had squirmed a little, flaring pain. Stretched out two- and four-jointed fingers and dragged himself towards the edge of the circle. No purpose in mind but to move, to find the source of light and sound...

Dante there, with a handful of human lives, and at the scent the new-birthed creation knew its first and only instance of true, normal hunger. Hunger that bread or bandages could satiate; hunger for nourishment and healing and sleep.

But Dante, Dante there with the sweet-smelling red stone, melt-in-your-mouth, and when the first piece passed what passed for lips on the deformed creature, it became no creature but Greed, forever more the unwanted prodigal, cursed to crave but be not satisfied. Dante had craved power, had created her first homunculus with no other purpose but to prove that she could, and that became the embodiment of Greed, and though she grew ashamed of him almost instantaneously, he could not cease to exist.

A low groan had started somewhere in him at the second mouthful of red stone, almost a keening. Over his own rising cry there came the slow surge of thunder, that cracked open both earth and sky and, he thought, his mind; his twisted bones vibrated with it, sang with it, and it was then that he realized the only thing he would ever want was more than all of existance could give.

"Greed."

Martel's voice, feminine and hard as her serpent half, broke the reverie he'd let himself fall into. Storms did that to him. He focused his gaze away from the raging sky and onto his own reflection in the iron-gray glass. The reflection grinned.

Thunder rumbled low outside, a tamer echo of his memory.

"Time for a homecoming?" His voice was soft but powerful; one did not miss the voice of Greed, not even its lowest whispers.

"Sir," Martel said smartly, a hint of the old soldier showing through. She hesitated, then took a step further into the room. "Boss..." she said slowly. "Why Central? Why now? We just got out of the Fifth Lab."

"No worries," he said. "The military all goes back to Pride, and you know what they say that leads to."

She shook her head, not understanding. His grin widened. Pointed teeth glinted back at him from the windowpane. Outside, the sky grew darker -- with night for more rain, he was unsure. It didn't matter.

He turned away, picking up his jacket from the bedpost near his hand in one fluid motion. He shrugged into it as he walked towards his favorite lackey. Fur tickled the base of his neck.

"There are others like me, you know," he said, stopping just short of her personal space. "Probably the only beings in the world who could take me out. Powerful. Sinful."

He stepped closer, until she had to look up to meet his eyes, those full lips set in their usual straight, hard line. Her eyes glinted like scale, impenetrable. He stared at her seriously for a moment, and some sort of silent communication passed between them -- her gratitude for his trust in her, his almost-apologetic dismissal of her feelings. He wanted her loyalty, but it did not satisfy; he wanted her unconditional love, and she gave it, but it wasn't enough. Nothing ever was.

He wanted her to understand.

She did.

He grinned again, suddenly, sharp teeth very close to Martel's face. "But those guys, they can't touch me. Know why? Because they're afraid of me. They see themselves in me, and it scares the shit out of them. I am each of their worst nightmares about what they might become -- uncontrollable, purposeless, comfortable with their true forms." He started to walk around her, very slowly. She followed him with her eyes until he went behind her, where he remained, speaking in almost a hiss. It was as if he didn't want to be watched as he confessed, and yet it was impossible for him to not want something.

"But worst of all," he murmured into her ear, "deep down, they understand that I am the purest of the seven. They are all corruptions of my unmitigated sin. They crave. Flesh, both carnal and cannibalistic... power... the pain of others. Even Sloth, who craves nothing with all of her being. But all their hungers can be sated, at least for a while. And they fear me, fear becoming me, because I can feel no satisfaction. I want without knowing what I want. They despise me because they're afraid they might understand me."

His grinning face entered her field of view, a hint of mania writhing, pinned, under the forced sanity of his gaze. "Which is why they can't touch me," he added, matter-of-fact edged with hysteria. "So you just worry about each soldier as they come. One at a time. Make it easy on yourself. Think of them as individuals, maybe, imagine kids and lovers and lives. It's more fun that way."

Martel said nothing, but as long as he remained in her field of view, she met his eyes unflinchingly.

He came around in front of her again, close, and reached out to touch her. Nails dragged lightly down one cheek, across her lips; he watched the pressure dent and whiten her skin, then the red marks left behind, fast-fading. He raised his other hand and cupped her face between inhumanly cool palms.

I want you, he thought about saying, knowing she would never understand what he meant by it.

want your love platonic romantic want to hurt you schadenfreude humiliation cut cut cut and tease want to love you in the morning sunrise and coffee want to be hurt by you emotional physical want to tear you apart and put you back together want you to care and not to care and understand and not understand and be cruel and scream and laugh and cry and want truth and want

want

A small sound. Drip. She was bleeding. There was blood under his nails. He looked up. She blinked slowly at him from behind a raked temple and brow, one small stream of blood tracing a path over the soft curve of her cheek and down to her chin.

There was love and pity and understanding in her eyes.

He let his hand drop, disgusted. Taking her wouldn't have meant anything anyway.

"Go tell Dog-boy and Lao we're heading out," he muttered, turning away and drifting back to the window. "And find Bido. He's probably cowering away from the cold. Tell him if he doesn't feel like getting wet he can let the alchemist heat him up."

"Leaving? In this, sir?" Martel's voice sounded as if nothing had happened.

"I feel like it," Greed snapped petulantly.

A hesitation. Then, "Sir."

He heard her turn, leave, close the door behind her. Her footsteps faded into the drumming on the roof.

Greed let out a harsh breath and leaned on the windowpane, elbows digging into the rough wood. He hoped he got splinters.

Outside, the surge and thunder of the storm still rose.


End file.
